Sunday, July 29, 2012

I by chance have been coming across some cool stuff lately on the internet in regards to Nightshade in terms of art work and these cool cosplay photos. It's nice to see this somewhat under rated character have their own little fan base. Did you know that Nightshade has been around since the mid sixties? In the old DC Universe she was probably best known for her long standing romantic relationship with Captain Atom along with her long term affiliation with The Suicide Squad and later with Shadowpact.

I always liked how she was on one hand sweet to the point of almost being nurturing but at the same time had enough back bone to stick up to Waller when she felt like The Wall was crossing a line in terms of ethics. Out in the field she was very effective even when not using her shadow powers. She is an excellent hand to hand combatant and skilled in the art of spying and infiltration.
Nightshade is among the original Suicide Squad members from the John Ostrander era who has yet to make a debut in the DC reboot. Yet another fail for the new DC Universe.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

I don't know if this is cosplay as opposed to being well staged photography but which ever you consider it this photo really hits it out of the park! I love it and so should you. And I didn't even get into how cute the young lady is posing as Barb. Don't piss her off or she'll hack into Skynet's defense mainframe and order a drone strike on you. Or worse, she'll obtain all your personal information go shopping on your dime.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Most of you may no doubt recognize this as the same Wizard issue Dale Teabagwell from Mr. Morbids House of Fun posted recently: http://dbsuniverse.blogspot.com/2012/07/suicidal-tendencies.html I'm just posting the article here again in a format that will make it much easier to read.
I'll post each of all three parts every couple of days. I highly recommend reading all three posts that article has everything from the research that was done for Boomerang's Aussie slang to the inspiration for transforming the post "Killing Joke" Barbara Gordon into the enduring character we all know today as Oracle.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Here's some REALLY nice clip art I found from an issue of Justice League America #22 Vol.2 (2008) that I actually used to have. Maybe I'll get lucky and find it in a 1 dollar bin some day? Let me give you all a quick run through of the romantic history of Vixen (Mari McCabe) and Bronze Tiger ( Ben Turner).
Vixen, a former Justice League member joined the Squad in issue 11 (1988) and later into the series a romance started up between her and Bronze Tiger. But unfortunately in issue 38 (1990) Turner was subjected to a particularly brutal debriefing by sergeantSteele that caused him to have a mental break down due to the brain washing that Turner underwent by the League of Assassins years before he joined the Suicide Squad. Waller helped him come back to his senses and put him back on The Squad but Turner was not quite the same man he was before his breakdown. He had become defensive and emotionally distant which put a great strain on his relationship with Vixen.
In issue 58 (1991) Mari decided to leave the Squad and gave Ben a kindly worded "Dear John" speech on her way out. She would eventually rejoin the Justice League as Ben soldiered on with The Squad. Years later hey would eventually meet again as the two teams clashed over Operation Salvation Run.

I'm really glad the the writers at DC maintained the post relationship narrative of these two characters. It was quite clear that they had feelings for each still but had a mutual understanding that their respective lives are on different paths. Sometimes that's just how it is between two people who care about each other and mean well but realize their just not compatible for whatever reason. It's not always like The Jerry Springer Show.

How about that Ben Turner? One of the top 3 martial artists in the old DCU and an all around stand up guy. He just blew a great chance with Vixen to have some of that "sex with the ex" action. As far as I know before the old DCU came to and end they never got back together but as you can see here at least they were able to have some sort of reconciliation and be on good terms before the dreaded DC relaunch happened.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Herewe have some new fan art from a lovely and talented young lady from the twin island Caribbean nation of Trinidad & Tobago. As you can see this piece exemplifies well the principles of good figure drawing in terms of proportions, perspective and composition. She also has a distinctive style to her work which is almost as important as a good understanding of the principles of illustration. Take a moment to view some of her other work: http://sodaesketchbox.blogspot.com/ This was her reply when asked how she came about doing a rendering of Amanda Waller.

"I got to like Waller from DCUO- a PC game. I haven't seen the GL movie,
Bassett seemed like the best physical reference I was interested in
using. Since most versions of her seem to be different, I assumed that
maybe it was a Hollywood image move, placing Bassett in the film. Yet, I
wasn't really interested in the movie per se, just an image I came
across that I could work
with to portray the voice that I liked in DCUO. Not too asexual and yet
not too comic-female-stereotype. That's what I was aiming for."

Saturday, July 14, 2012

I've been meaning to do some fan art of Duchess for a while now and lately I've been on a role artistically speaking. Duchess was one of my favorite Squad members during her tenure with Task Force X. I always liked how she used call everybody worms. It's too bad she eventually had to turn bad again and reclaim her alter ego as Lashina of the Female Furies and cause one of the biggest Squad fiascoes ever. But it also made for one of the best Suicide Squad story arcs too.
For this piece I thought it might be a nice touch to have her flanked by Bronze Tiger and Deadshot. This is the first time I've illustrated BT with out his tiger Mask. It's always good to diversify your work a bit here and there. I think hands and faces are always the hardest things to draw. And faces can be especially challenging with black n' white drawings that feature characters of certain ethnic backgrounds.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

I read the first few pages of the issue online which you can do here if you care to: http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album_view.php?gid=4369 As for the rest of the issue I basically just browsed it on the shelf but I felt uninspired to buy it. After The Squad's little "mid air accident" they find themselves washed ashore on some remote island where they encounter some primitive natives who proceed to have them as their guests. In return the natives get to watch and listen to The Squad bitch and fight amongst themselves pretty much till the end of the issue. It's basically Task Force X meets Danger Island from that late 70s kids show The Banana Splits. And unfortunately there's no sign of Yo-Yo in this issue which was the only thing of any interest in last month's issue given that he was about to kill Waller for having left him in King Shark's stomach.
So to no surprise from what I could see this was more of the same mediocrity I've come to expect of the Suicide Squad reboot. But never the less I should probably stop beating up on Adam Glass. Based on all that's been said I'd give Adam the benefit of the doubt that DC is not letting him do everything he may want to do with this book. He no doubt has seen the stuff I've been ranting about on this blog and has said that we're on the same side.
So it is quite possible want we want to see in the book may be also what he wants to see in the book. Of course I wouldn't expect Adam to show up here again and verify or deny all this. Pissing off the "bosses" at DC would probably not be in his best interest. After all being a writer for DC is part of his lively hood and as you can see from his Facebook profile the man does have a family to take care. But speaking for myself I still ain't spendin no money for a book that isn't enjoyable to read. In fact, if I was a betting man at this point I'd put my money on this title tanking faster then the U.S. housing market did in late 2008 if Harley Quinn were to make a sudden exit from the series.

Hey DC! Just bite down on your cyanide tooth and yell "hail Naga Naga" or "allha ackbar already". It's better then the slow death you're going through as of now.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

I made some good finds recently in some $1 bins. First I found Countdown 39 which was part of this on going series in the old DCU that covered multiple story arcs with numerous characters and teams. What it all culminated to I'm not sure to be honest but I do know it featured the Suicide Squad here and there. During the Countdown series (as in other titles like Gotham Underground and Checkmate) we see The Squad hunting down meta criminals in order to have them sent off to a prison planet via boom tube technology (Operation Salvation Run). In this particular issue The Penguin who is now a restaurant owner pretends to provide safe haven to The Trickster and The Pied Piper but sells them out to The Squad shortly there after.

Isn't that one of the coolest pieces of Bronze Tiger clip art you've ever scene? He looks Hella bad ass here this makes me wanna go pump some iron. However, Trickster and Piper manage to elude capture and it wouldn't be the first time. Deadshot in particular starts getting really pissed about that and eventually catches up with them on his own and kills The Trickster as seen in a previous posting: http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2011/08/countdown-22-trickster-in-line-of.html

Left click to enlarge

I was also able to pick Superboy #13 and 14 (1995) which are the final two issues that complete the "Watery Grave" story arc in which Superboy and The Suicide Squad team up in order to invade and take down the under water headquarters of a criminal organization (Silicon Dragons) that deals in stolen high tech. A while back I found issue #12 in the same $1 bins you can see that posting here: http://suicidesquadtaskforcex.blogspot.com/2012/01/suicide-squad-watery-grave-captain.html

Thursday, July 5, 2012

This just showed about a couple of hours ago in the comments section of the Amanda Waller team 7 posting from July 1st.

Left click to enlarge

Now I have no way of knowing if this is the real Adam Glass or somebody just screwing with me. But based on his CBR interview this certainly sounds like Glass so I'll just go with it for now. First of all Adam I'm pretty sure my Facebook messages went to the right "Adam Glass". This is you no?

Aside from this looking like you as far as I can tell based on the CBR video interview this Adam Glass is friends with the former colorist of the Suicide Squad relaunch Val Staples (nice guy we used to chat online) and the current artist Federico Dallocchio who's done much of the penciling on the title so far.
But if you say you didn't get my FB messages for what ever reason then so be it. But fuck it it doesn't matter now. First I'd like to say thank you for taking the time to leave that rather diplomatic comment that was pretty cool of you. Of course I can't help but feel like kind of a dick for the things I've said about your work in the SS relaunch now that I've heard from you here. But it's how I felt and I was being honest about it and this blog is pretty much for that sort of thing.
However, that being said I want to reiterate that I DO NOT think you are bad writer. Because if I did I wouldn't have liked this book from the beginning. And I did for quite a while (as mentioned in the previous posting) which Val will vouch for me on that. I even used to have heated debates with others on the net who were giving it a bad wrap from the beginning. I know it's not easy even for a professional to put yourself out there like you do and soldier on even in the midst of catching Hell so I do sympathize.
I can't say in all honestly that I will continue to buy the book at the moment but I will keep following it which I would have done anyways for curiosity's sake at least. But I can promise you that in the event it genuinely starts to grab me again I certainly will be more then happy to throw down my $2.99 a month for it along with all relevant Suicide Squad tie-ins in the new DC Comics Universe.

Sincerely, The Shlomo

P.S. You better be the real Adam Glass cause if I just got punked I'm gonna be pissed! And to the rest of you my one $1 bin posting will be delayed for a couple of days for obvious reasons.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

There are a lot of elements that go into what makes a good photo.
Sometimes it's just a simple matter of being at the right place at the
right time. In this case it was somebody who was at a comic shop at the
same time there was a Joker and Harley cosplay couple with a copy of
Suicide Squad #3 around. I wish I had found this photo image back when I
made my taunting video to Harley fans after the Deadshot and Harley
hook up.

Left Click to enlarge

Ah yes that was way back when I actually enjoyed reading the Suicide
Squad reboot. It would be issue #4 that kinda took the wind out of my sails with the Basilisk name and Captain Boomerang getting taken out of the story line. The writing bounced back with the "Hunt for Harley Quinn" story arc over the next 3 issues which was really good but I very shortly there after found myself feeling really disappointed when it was getting to be obvious where Adam Glass seemed to be determined to take the SS reboot. Be back here in a couple of days as we get back to matters of the Suicide Squad from the old DCU thanks to some of my latest $1 dollar bin finds.

Sunday, July 1, 2012

So here's something about the DC 52 I find somewhat intriguing. A bit later this year as far as I can tell a series of zero issues are coming out. Among them is gonna be one for the Suicide Squad and another related title called Team 7. Now the interesting thing about Team 7 is that it was about some sort of black ops team that among others included Amanda Waller, Steve Trevor and Slade Wilson. At some point some really bad shit went down with the team and that some how ties into the origins of The Suicide Squad. It's too early to say if I might pick these up but I have to admit I'm a bit intrigued with the basic premise here. Not to mention the cover art rocks! In fact I just wanted to say that of all the shitty things about the new Suicide Squad title I've been lambasting the art work is not among them. That's been the one thing about the series I've been consistently happy with. But it takes more then good art work to make a comic book series enjoyable much like how it takes more then elaborate special effects to make a good movie. Take Starshit Troopers for example. Great special effects and fight scenes but a completely stupid premise and unbelievably cliche characters. Speaking of the space troopers theme is it just me or does Team 7 have a bit of an Alien Legion look to em?

I thought I might share with you all my messages to Adam Glass on Facebook in the last month or so. In case it's not obvious here he never replied. In all fairness I can't really blame him for not replying if I were Adam Glass I wouldn't wanna talk to me either : )